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Weaknesses of Stakeholder Relationships, Communication Processes and Human Resource Information Systems in the Brandix- Awissawella
A project report
Thus, the report discusses the above mentioned areas pertaining to Brandix Casualwear –
Awissawella Factory.
Brandix Casualwear Ltd. currently operates in six manufacturing units around Sri Lanka
specializing in casual woven bottoms. The Brandix Casualwear Awissawella factory
which is the factory in concern is located in the Seethawaka Industrial Zone (SIZ). The
Awissawella plant has the highest efficiency rate and maintains high quality standards.
Talking of the holding company,
Brandix Lanka is one of the most reputed and prominent brands in Sri Lanka. Its’ core
business being apparel manufacturing, Brandix places emphasis on high quality standards
using ethical means of labour and caters to top premium fashion brands such as Old
Navy, M & S, Victoria’s Secrets, GAP, etc. It is the largest exporter in the country
contributing a high percentage towards Sri Lanka’s foreign income earnings and has
uplifted the standard of living in rural communities by providing employment to
thousands of Sri Lankans. Founded in 2002 with a unique customer-centric structure,
Brandix pioneered the concept of holistic apparel solutions in a concerted initiative to
facilitate its vision of achieving manufacturing and supply chain excellence and working
closely with its partners to provide truly inspired solutions.
The report lays down the specific features and weaknesses of stakeholder relationships,
communication processes and Human Resource Information Systems in the Brandix
Casualwear – Awissawella factory in order to evaluate the processes and arrive into
conclusions so that appropriate recommendations can be provided for improvement.
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Contents1.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1
2.0 Information and Knowledge Need at Brandix - Awissawella.................................................................3
2.1 Factory Level organization structure – Brandix Casualwear Awissawella Factory................3
2.2 Range of Decisions to be taken HR Department...................................................................3
2.4 Internal and External sources of information.......................................................................7
2.5 Needs of information and knowledge within the factory.....................................................8
2.6 Recommendations for improvement....................................................................................8
3.0 Business Networking in Brandix..........................................................................................................10
3.1 Stakeholders and their importance....................................................................................10
3.2 Making contact with stakeholders......................................................................................12
3.3 Involvement of stakeholders in decision making................................................................12
3.4 Strategies for improvement................................................................................................13
4.0 Communication Process in Brandix.....................................................................................................15
..................................................................................................................................................15
4.1 Process of Communication.................................................................................................15
4.2 Evaluating the process of communication..........................................................................17
4.3 Greater integration of communication processes by overcoming weaknesses in the process......................................................................................................................................18
4.4 Personal communication weaknesses of Human Resources Department.........................19
4.5 Personal Communication Development plan......................................................................20
5.0 Information and Knowledge Systems at Brandix................................................................21
Approaches to collection, formatting, storage, and dissemination of information and knowledge.............................................................................................................................21
5.3 Strategic implementation to improve access to information and knowledge systems.......23
6.0 Conclusions and Recommendations....................................................................................................25
7.0 References...........................................................................................................................................26
Web Sites..............................................................................................................................26
Books....................................................................................................................................26
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3
2.0 Information and Knowledge Need at Brandix - Awissawella
2.1 Factory Level organization structure – Brandix Casualwear Awissawella Factory
The organization structure of Brandix Casualwear – Awissawella factory is
separated into three levels of management as shown above. Strategic level consists of the
Factory manager (also known as Senior manager – Operations in the Sectorial
organization structure), Managerial level includes; Administrator, Plant engineer,
Accountant, Sewing floor manager, Finishing manager, Quality Assurance Manager and
Human resources Manager. Operational level posts of the factory are; Assistant
managers, Human Resources department staff, Supervisors and Machine operators.
2.2 Range of Decisions to be taken HR Department
Strategic level decisions
o Decisions are made by strategic level managers, usually future-oriented and focus
on the whole organization/factory.
o Deciding on products that will be developed and produced
o Investment decisions – Investment in new projects
o Decisions to expand production capacity of the plant-sewing lines, finishing lines
o Approval of capital expenditure items - Especially regarding support facilities;
Air condition systems, new information systems
Tactical level decisions
o Decisions made at this level involve the establishment of key initiatives, in order to
achieve the overall strategy of the organization.
o Resource allocation decisions - Labour, sewing machines
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o Decisions to ensure production targets are met by operations team
o Decisions on recruiting labour for the factory
Operational level decisions
o Operational level involves the day-to-day operations of the factory and thus need
to be addressed prior to severe issues.
o Decisions to ensure targets are met
o Decisions regarding labour grievances
o Decisions to ensure all required material are obtained by coordinating with
relevant parties
5
2.3 Information and Knowledge needed to make HR decisions at Brandix - Awissawella
Informationo Strategic level information
o Industry and trade policies
o Implications of recently proposed legislations
o Legal restraints on trade, market and products
o Share market information
o Interest rates
o Policies on machine replacement, augmentation
o Analysis of competitors strategy
o Organization’s tax plan
o Forecast of the GDP
o Tactical level information
o Performance appraisal records
o Labour turnover and attendance records
o Identified critical bottlenecks in production
o Performance measures of machines to decide replacement
o Correlation of pricing and sales
o Optimal reorder levels
o Budget variances
o Operational level information
o Records on availability of tools, machine and labour
o Market share and trends
o Sales target versus achievements
o List of goods, received, rejected and issued
o Payments and receipts
o Skills inventory
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o Leave records
Knowledge
The knowledge required in decision making is often categorized into; Tacit and Explicit
based on the nature of knowledge. The above categorization was introduced by Nonaka
in 1994 and has been highlighted as a theory by Botha et al in 2008 hence in practice the
knowledge is a fusion of tacit and explicit factors rather than being identified as one or
the other.
Tacit knowledge (know-how) refers to knowledge which is intuitive, and that is difficult
to be expressed as it is mainly based on experiences. Hence, tacit knowledge often
depends on the context and person.
Tacit knowledge required in decision making at Brandix – Awissawella
o Knowledge obtained through the involvement in similar type of projects in the
industry
o Knowledge obtained in handling the same issues in the factory repeatedly
o Ready made decisions for issues in a factory which are made by managers who
were employed in the past
In contrast, Explicit knowledge (know-what) refers to the knowledge that could be
codified and formalized and also that could be easily identified, expressed and processed.
Explicit knowledge required in decision making at Brandix – Awissawella
o Knowledge extracted from others in the factory
o Knowledge stored in knowledge management systems
o Knowledge in books, journals and other databases
7
2.4 Internal and External sources of information
Internal sources
o Work study department
o Sewing, finishing efficiency related data and production data.
o Data recorders are allocated to production area by work-study department, who
captures data.
o Human Resource Department
o Cadre details, Labor turnover information, Absenteeism rates of the factory
o Key Performance Indicator reports
External sources
Sri Lanka Apparel Association
Other colleagues who work in Apparel industry
Government Gazette
Internet
Documents used in gathering information
Purchase/service order
GRN – Goods received note
Invoices
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2.5 Needs of information and knowledge within the factory
o The need for information and knowledge in the factory is fundamentally
addressed by the processes of gathering information and knowledge.
o Thus, the strengths and weaknesses evident in the processes of gathering
information and knowledge are highlighted in the section below;
o Strengths of the process of gathering information and knowledge
o Data is gathered consulting the control points at each location.
o Sufficient labour force is involved in the process.
o Currently the company is planning to implement the RFID tag solution in order to
capture data without involvement of data recorders.
Weaknesses in the process of gathering information and knowledge.
o Data recorders are involved in gathering information and knowledge.
o Inaccuracy of data is highly evident within the processes.
o There is a delay of disseminating the information and knowledge after an
operation is complete. This is mainly due to manual calculation and collating of
data.
o If a data recorder doesn’t report to work, there is no way or delays are evident in
getting the information or knowledge gathered by the particular data recorder.
o Presentation of information is not standardized.
2.6 Recommendations for improvement
o Installation of automated systems to gather information and knowledge in the
factory.
The company is currently considering the introduction of RFID tag solution to improve
the efficiency of data gathering by replacing data recorders. This method could be
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expensive, but it will be an investment for the company as it will be in line with the
industrial trends and will bring about competitive advantage.
o Implementing motivation schemes in order to trigger the work pace of data
recorders.
Inaccuracy and delays in the process could be due to the low levels of motivation among
the data recorders hence, motivating them would prove to be a solution to overcome the
issue of inaccuracy and delay.
o Providing training and development for data recorders in the factory.
Providing computers for data recorders for calculations and processing of gathered data.
As it is mentioned that there are delays in disseminating the gathered information and
knowledge within the factory, it is noticeable that the data recorder population requires
training in this particular field in order to specialize in recording data which will result in
higher efficiency and effectiveness of the gathering processes.
o Minimizing labour turnover and absenteeism among data recorders in the factory
by revision of payment schemes.
Inability to obtain data collected by absent workers is one of the weaknesses which could
be overcome by revising the payment schemes and introducing special rewards for data
recorders.
10
3.0 Business Networking in Brandix
3.1 Stakeholders and their importance
o List of stakeholderso Ownerso Employeeso Supplierso Societyo Government - Urban/ Municipal council, Inland Revenue dept., Labour
departmento Apparel industry bodies - Joint apparel consortium
Stakeholder Map
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Employees
OwnersShareholders
Senior Management of Brandix Casualwear
Mgt. of BCW - AwissawellaGovernment
Apparel industry bodiesCompetitors
SocietyCustomersSuppliers
POWER
INTERE
ST
High
High
Low
Low
Key Stakeholders are plotted in the High Power – High Interest zone, indicating that
making network with them is priority to the organization/factory. Key Stakeholders’
needs and expectations need to be determined so that the organizations objectives will be
set accordingly.
The main reason behind plotting Competitors in the Key stakeholder zone is that the
Seethawaka IPZ consists of apparel manufacturers such as, Brandix, MAS, Hirdaramani,
and JJM and so on where each other’s activities are interrelated concerning areas such as
market share and bargaining power in acquiring resources (labour).
o Significance of networking with each stakeholder group
o Owners and shareholders
o To expand the business, investment in new projects
o Senior management and Management of BCW Awissawella
o To formulate policies and strategies for the organization
o Government
o Ensure all govt. regulations are met
o To receive any concessions received for the apparel industry (tax holidays, duty
waive offs)
o Apparel industry bodies
o To receive customer orders
o To maximize collective bargaining power
o Employees
o To ensure production done at optimum and efficient level
o Society
o For any potential labor recruitment
o Customers
o To promote the business and increase sales
o Suppliers
o For any services and material purchase
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3.2 Making contact with stakeholders
Business Networking is to bring about socioeconomic interactions between groups of
people with common interests and professions in order to identify, develop and exploit
business prospects.
Thus, making contact with stakeholders to develop business affairs is considered critical
in Brandix Casualwear - Awissawella factory and a range of methods and media are used
in the process of making contact with stakeholders,
o Owners and shareholders Meetings, Annual Report
o Government Emails, Official letters, Reports
o Apparel industry bodies Operational reports
o Employees Notices, Circulars, Public addressing, Meetings
o Customers Emails, Meetings, Trade fairs and exhibitions
o Society Recruitment advertisements, CSR projects
o Suppliers Emails
3.3 Involvement of stakeholders in decision making
The Brandix Casualwear considers it critical to obtain the involvement of stakeholders in
the process of decision making and implements the following methods to do so;
Formal/Informal meetings – This creates an atmosphere in which the stakeholders can
meet with company representatives to discuss topics of interest and give their opinions.
Here, the stakeholders are made to feel that their opinions matter to the company.
E.g.: Townhall meetings – a forum where the employees meet the senior management of
the company to discuss about the company’s way forward, current performance and ask
any questions.
13
One on One chats of supervisors/HR/management with employees
Surveys/Questionnaires – directed at the employees or any local community groups to
solicit their opinions on company related issues
Eg: Great Place to Work (GPTW) survey and employee satisfaction survey conducted
once a year to gather employee ideas about the company
Setting up projects in partnership with stakeholders
Take part in multi-stakeholder forums and participate in discussions where ideas can be
exchanged among key stakeholders
3.4 Strategies for improvement
As per findings, it is evident that the information exchanged among the stakeholders of
Brandix is not sufficiently transparent. The causes for this weakness could be;
The company does not encourage close relationships with stakeholders
Has not implemented sufficient methods to involve stakeholders in the decision making
of the company.
Considering the weaknesses and causes of the weaknesses we could assume that the
company’s efforts to encourage the involvement of stakeholders in decision making of
the business activities will prove to be a solution to overcome the above.Hence, it is
recommended that the company could implement the following to improve networking
among the stakeholders;
o Building rapport with every stakeholder group, depending on the varied influence
of each party.
o Improving the awareness of stakeholders on how important they are for the
company and the decision making process.
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o Conducting more social events with the participation of the key stakeholders
which would help in improving awareness as well as building rapport.
o Publishing a monthly newsletter to be circulated among the stakeholders, this
could help improve awareness of stakeholders regarding the activities of the
company.
o Implementing the above will facilitate the company to overcome the weakness of
insufficient transparency in the information exchanged.
15
4.0 Communication Process in Brandix
4.1 Process of Communication
Figure 1
Communication Plan of Brandix Casualwear - Awissawella
Table 1
Tool
of
co
mm
unic
atio
n
Des
crip
tion
Targ
et a
udie
nce
Freq
uenc
y
Purp
ose
Type
Res
pons
ible
per
son
Tea Sessions Group of
employees and management sit over tea and discuss company related matters and any personal opinions and ideas
Employees Ad hoc To determine personal opinions of employees
Formal HR Manager
Download sessions
Management downloads the employees on company related information
Employees Monthly Distributing company related information
Formal
16
Sender Message Receiver
Tool
of
co
mm
unic
atio
n
Des
crip
tion
Targ
et a
udie
nce
Freq
uenc
y
Purp
ose
Type
Res
pons
ible
per
son
Monday morning meetings
Meetings held on Monday mornings to plan the work week
Employees Weekly Planning the work schedules for the week
Formal Department heads
Pre-production Meeting
Meetings held before production starts to discuss any production specifics
Production Department
Ad hoc Discussing production specifics
Formal Production Managers
Factory improvement team meeting
Held to discuss the achievement of key performance indicators and any other concerns
Machine operators
Weekly Reviewing key performance indicators
Formal Quality Assurance Manager
CFT meeting Cross functional
team meets up to discuss the performance of the business unit
Cross functional teams
Weekly Reviewing performance of the business units
Formal CFT Heads
Tool
of
co
mm
unic
atio
n
Des
crip
tion
Targ
et a
udie
nce
Freq
uenc
y
Purp
ose
Type
Res
pons
ible
per
son
GPTW Employees Annuall To gather Inform HR
17
(Great Place To Work)survey
Surveys conducted to solicit their opinions on company related issues and employee
and local community
y ideas of employees and community
al Executives
4.2 Evaluating the process of communication
Advantages of the communication process at Brandix - AwissawellaThere is an open door policy where any employee can approach the management with
any concerns. Everyone will be heard.
There is acceleration in the communication process due to sophisticated systems being
used for communication (emails, video conferencing) which makes it unnecessary for
people to physically travel to a location to participate in a meeting.
Disadvantages of the communication process at Brandix - AwissawellaPeople have gotten so used to sending emails that they write emails to sort out every issue
without personally getting down sorting out the issue. This consumes time as well as
some people wait for an issue to be sorted while there is no proper action from the other
party.
Sometimes the communication is not transparent enough which makes employees feel
insecure.
Special features of the communication processMany innovative tools are used in communication with employees (tea sessions, brown
bag lunches)
18
Weaknesses in the communication process at Brandix – AwissawellaPeople have become so dependent on electronic communication which sometimes results
in delaying action
Lack of transparency
4.3 Greater integration of communication processes by overcoming weaknesses in the process
o Changes in the email culture
The email writing culture needs to be changed where people should be urged to get down
to quick action to rapidly respond in a crisis situation rather than writing an email to some
party and waiting for the email to sort out the issue.
o Especially because, factory employees do not always spend time at their desks
and hardly get time to check emails.
Furthermore, the email writing culture needs to be changed where people do not
unnecessarily copy people on emails and direct emails only to the required people, write
proper headings for emails and most importantly, respond to received emails promptly.
o Reduce dependency on electronic media
Employees should be encouraged to balance between electronic and non-electronic media
as electronic media is at times an unreliable method of communication.
o Improve transparency of communication
Strong relationships should be developed among stakeholders, which will invariably
result in the reliability and transparency of the communication.
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4.4 Personal communication weaknesses of Human Resources Department
During the study of the communication process of Brandix Casualwear – Awissawella
factory, many managers were interviewed and given questionnaires to be filled up in
order to gather information pertaining to the research. There were many who were willing
to fill the questionnaires and refused to allocate time for interviews, excused by their
busy schedules. And there were also some who did not want to spend time filling up a
questionnaire rather were ready for interviews. The reason behind the different
preferences of managers was due to their awareness of their communication strengths and
weaknesses. Even at their workplace they reflect some weaknesses which have been
observed by their subordinates and are listed below.
Some of the weaknesses evident in the Human Resources Department were;
o Lack of presentation skills
o Not attractive
o Reading the content of slides
o Not making maximum use of multimedia
o Lack of language proficiency
o Pronunciation errors
o Grammatical errors
o Lack of focus
o Lack of subject knowledge
o Nervousness
o Lack of listening skills
o Going into unnecessary details
o Delivering at a high pace
o Poor voice projection
o Disfigured handwriting
o Attitude towards electronic media
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o Lack of computer literacy
4.5 Personal Communication Development planFigure 2
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Where do you stand now?
Define the current state of the
person who needs to undergo the
development process.
Indicate strengths and
weaknesses of communication
Where do you want to be in the future?
Mention the future ambition,
what communication skills you
desire to acquire, in which areas
you need to develop
How successful have you got?
Analyze the communication
skills and competencies by doing
tasks and activities and compare
with the earlier state and the
desired state.
How to get there?
Identify the ways and means of improving communications
skills.
Workshops/SeminarsTrainingBooks
5.0 Information and Knowledge Systems at Brandix
Approaches to collection, formatting, storage, and dissemination of information and knowledge
Table 2
Information Knowledge
Collecting InterviewsQuestionnaires/ SurveysReportsNewspapersGovernment publicationsInformal ChatsIndustry visitsField visitsObservationsAssociate staff and executive staff are involved
WorkshopsSeminarsTraining programsAcademic coursesInternshipsTransfersDiscussionsInternational forums
Formatting EditingFiltering the gathered informationCodingOrganizing the selected informationData entryRecording the information in a orderly mannerValidationChecking the quality of informationTabulationInserting information into tables
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Executive staff are involvedStoring Traditional approach
Storing information in files and cabinetsModern approachStorage in Hard Disks, Flash drives, Blue-ray disks etc.Executive staff are involved
Disseminating PrintNewspapersJournalsReportsPamphletsMeetings/ConferencesRadioTelevisionInternetManagerial level staff are responsible for disseminating information
DiscussionsMeetingsConferencesWorkshopsTraining programsDemonstrations
Apart from the above mentioned approaches to collecting, formatting, storing and disseminating information and knowledge, the company adopts two key information systems in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes involved.
They are namely;
o Movexo hSenid – HRM Enterprise
Table 3
Information System Advantages Disadvantages
Movex Very sophisticatedHas many features
Very complicatedNot user friendly
23
hSenid – HRM Enterprise Very user friendly Not many sophisticated features
Changes to be implemented in the existing information systems used in Brandix – Awissawella
The user friendliness of the Movex system needs to be improved and further training
needs to be given to employees.This will result in an improvement in the efficiency of
employees involved in handling information.Company will have to invest large amounts
to provide training for employees
HRM Enterprise system needs to be upgraded with further sophisticated useful features.
This will be a costly step towards improving information systems. Nonetheless, in the
long run the company will be benefited by the features which will offer competitive
advantage.
5.3 Strategic implementation to improve access to information and knowledge systems
o System Development Life Cycle
System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) lays down the stages to be involved in
developing information systems and is widely adopted in project management. This is
started off through an initial investigation and the other stages follow upto the
implementation stage.
o Project Definition
Basic objectives need to be defined in the initial stage to carry out the process of system
development smoothly.
o Feasibility Study
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In this phase, the analysts determine whether to carry on with the project considering the
benefits and drawbacks of proceeding. If decided to continue, the project plan and budget
will be generated.
o Requirement definition
The requirements of the customer are defined in this phase so as to design the system
accordingly, inclusive of all features desired.
o System Requirement Definition
Requirements of the system are defined here which will also facilitate the system design
phase.
o System Analysis and System Design
Numbers of designs are made by the analyst in the form of rough images or sketches and
examine whether all requirements are included in the design. Subsequently, the analyst
will select the design that sufficiently caters to the requirements.
o Testing
After the analyst is ready with the design, he runs it to identify the functioning and
performance of the system, and take corrective steps if any deviations.
o Implementation
Here, the analyst converts his design into a code in line with the requirements the
computing language will be chosen.
o Maintenance
Once the systems is installed, the usage of the system will lead to changes in the
performance and speed hence maintenance is vital to keep up the performance.
o Review
25
Systems need to be regularly monitored to identify variances in the system so that
improvements could be made from time to time.
6.0 Conclusions and Recommendations
As per the research findings there were weaknesses evident in the involvement of stakeholders in decision making, communication process within the Brandix Casualwear – Awissawella factory. Recommendations have been provided in each of the sections accordingly to overcome the weaknesses and improve the efficiency of the process.
Hence, implementing the given recommendations will facilitate the factory to overcome the weaknesses and obtain competitive advantage through the effective use of stakeholder involvement and communication processes.
26
7.0 References
Web Sites
http://www.knowledge-management-tools.net/different-types-of-knowledge.html
http://www.brandix.lk/
http://hrmtutorial.blogspot.com/
http://www.hrmbusiness.com/2012/10/the-roles-and-responsibilities-of-hrms.html
http://humanresources.about.com/
http://www.managementstudyguide.com/human-resource-management.htm
http://www.dol.govt.nz/er/solvingproblems/types/misconduct.asp
Books
Study Pack of certificate Course In human Resource Management
Bhashkar Chatterjee, Human Resource Management-2009
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